Good Home Gym -- Hoist V6

I usually don't make these types of endorsements, but my wife and I just got our hoist v6 and I am really impressed with it. Of course, it is a little bit more of a "functional trainer," but I did some heavy lifting with the bar attachment and then moved to isolateral cable presses.

This thing kicked my butt to say the least and it was a lot cheaper and takes up a lot less space than other home gyms.

Well, I should clarify. Cheaper than most "top of the line" home gyms. Hoist is a killer brand and I talked the salesman down to $2,499 for both the machine and the adjustable bench that I plan on also using for DBs. I also got the set-up, delivery, and the additional leg curl and preacher curl attachments for an even 3K. The footprint is only 42 x 55, though it is a little tall at 83 inches. Compare this to Inspire's M4 that usually goes for around 4K, appears to me to be less versitle, and has about twice the footprint and you'll see what I mean.

I was debating between this and a new smith machine to replace an old rack. I went with this since my wife would rather have a functional trainer. So far I am happy with my decision.

OMG. I can't believe you guys don't know how inferior free weights are to a cable pulley system. Especially when you can make each cable a different height and weight and do loaded and unloaded real world exercises. Your cores and connectors muscles will never ever get worked until you get one of these machines and pair it with a swiss ball or a wobble board. The human arm has at least 3,679 muscles but when you do curls you only use two. What about the rest of those muscles? You guys will never get CUT until you get one of these amazing pieces of technology. I scoff at your free weights. GRAVITY? Are you serious?

Originally posted by zuiquan:OMG. I can't believe you guys don't know how inferior free weights are to a cable pulley system. Especially when you can make each cable a different height and weight and do loaded and unloaded real world exercises. Your cores and connectors muscles will never ever get worked until you get one of these machines and pair it with a swiss ball or a wobble board. The human arm has at least 3,679 muscles but when you do curls you only use two. What about the rest of those muscles? You guys will never get CUT until you get one of these amazing pieces of technology. I scoff at your free weights. GRAVITY? Are you serious?

Oh stop. I get CUT all the time. I lose 5 pounds every other day and gain it all back over the weekend. I'm a FREAK tho.

If you were really a FREAK you'd get RIPPED! Because that's what FREAKS get. RIPPED!

I once lost 30 pounds in two weeks using a cable pulley system and all my veins were popping and my cords were snapping. It was awesome. Then I gained back 20. All muscle though. It took like another month. Because you know, it's harder to put on muscle than looz gobs of fat. But I did use NOXPLODE and rubbed it on all my muscles so I can't take all the credit for being this awesome.

I was in a gym store this past weekend and saw the V6. To be honest it was a nice machine, well designed and solid.

But holy I laughed at the sales guy when I he told me the price, $2900.

Two problems I had with it were the weight capacity and lack of dip attachment. The default package comes with two 150-lb weight stacks but the cable applies 50% resistance so you're only getting 75-lbs for unilateral lifts and 150-lbs for bilateral. You can opt to get price gouged for optional 200-lb stacks (i.e. 100-lb resistance levels) which is fine for most folks except this means that your bench work is capped at 200-lbs.

I've seen some functional trainer systems that include dip attachments in the middle of the machine. Hoist could've done the same here but used the space to hang the cable accessories. Waste of a good opportunity here.

I've got a V2 that I bought new over 5 years ago and it still works perfectly so I can't complain about the craftsmanship. But I paid $1,000 and this included a recumbent bike in the deal along with shipping and free installation.

I won't fault a guy for buying a V6 and I wouldn't turn down one, but even the sales jockey at the store smiled when I laughed at the price tag. He told me he could get it to me for $2K if I wanted to trade in my V2. I told him I'd wait until it showed up on craigslist.